Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Politician Math

The late mafia leader John Gotti, who understood a thing or two about men, once told his daughter: "Regardless of how much a man tells you about how smart you are, he really has only one thing on his mind. You may see a certain man and think of him as grandfatherly, just remember, he has only one thing on his mind."

There is an analogous situation in the world of politics, no matter how much a politician tells you how he wants to fight for your cause, keep in mind that he has only one thing on his mind: getting or maintaining power.

No matter how well groomed or smooth he looks, no matter how well he delivers his lines, he has only one thing on his mind: getting or maintaining power.

In a democracy, in a two man race, a politician must be concerned with the percentage 50% plus one vote.(In a three man race, it's 33.3% plus one vote, but to keep things simple I will assume a two man race. In a three man race or more, the general idea is the same, just different percentages.) . To be a successful politician, a politician must look at each and every voter and determine whether that person is going to bring him closer to 50% plus one, and how much closer.

In other words, you as an individual voter are not very important to him. Think I'm kidding? Try getting an appointment with one of your U.S. senators to discuss some tax loophole you would like for yourself, so that instead of sending 25% of your money to the IRS, you get to use the money on a three month per year trip to the Bahamas, which you then are able to deduct from your tax bill. Go ahead, call your senator now and try and get this done.

If you understand politician math and the importance of 50% plus one vote to a politician, you will understand that individuals, who represent large groups of voters, can get appointments with senators. A Citibank lobbyist, and other bankster lobbyists, are also going to be able to get meetings with senators. They bring money that the politician can use in his campaign that will help him advance toward 50% plus one vote. That's why banksters get tax loopholes and you don't.

Understanding this math should help you understand why, for the liberty lover, politics is mostly a waste of time in present day America. Judging by the votes Ron Paul received in the recent primaries, and if we use that as a rough guide for the number of liberty voters, it is under 10%. There is no politician, outside of maybe in a fluke congressional district, that is going to win an election on a purely libertarian campaign. He will need to get from 10% to 50% plus one voter by appealing to groups beyond the 10% libertarians and that means appealing to groups that are decidedly non-libertarian and want something from the government. It has to be, there is no other way. The math says so. Ron Paul was an outlier, but he also did it on a congressional district level. The minute he considered running statewide in Texas for the U.S. Senate, which is a more powerful position and which caught the attention of political power players, Phil Gramm was brought in to run against Dr. Paul and neutralize him.

Bottom line, it makes no sense for an individual to vote, endorse, or work for any politician, especially if you are a libertarian. Democracies are about power players and divvying up the lucre and power. If on the other hand you somehow can deliver a vote of 10% or more because you have a following, you may be able to make a marginal incremental influence in favor of liberty. You won't get much, especially when you will be vying against other power players, who want to grab and take and steal and expand government power, but on a practical level, the mathematics work in that you may be able to get something.

This brings us to the curious case of Senator Rand Paul, who arguably once could have delivered to Mitt Romney the Ron Paul supporters and perhaps some Tea Party voters. This would have some weight with Romney and he would have listened to a Rand request for something in return for an endorsement. Rand, however, botched it by the timing of his endorsement (immediately after Ron Paul said he could not win, which gave the impression that Rand couldn't wait to endorse Romney), by the enthusiasm of his endorsement for the statist, war hawk Romney and because of his absurd attempt to give the impression that Ron Paul and Romney held similar views on the Fed and war.

Rand did nothing but damage his libertarian base, big time. Good luck with your next money bomb, Rand. Think more bomb and less money.

In addition to damaging his base, Rand also had very little to negotiate for in the first place. The power players associated with war and the Fed, that Romney aligns himself with, are much more powerful than Rand. He wouldn't be able to change Romney's views on those positions. Perhaps if Rand was a skilled political negotiator, he could have gotten the VP spot from where he could have used it for something akin to a bully pulpit for liberty. But Rand immediately came out in his endorsement of Romney and threw Ron Paul's liberty positions on war, and the Fed, under the bus.

This does not mean that endorsements and political contributions can never be used by libertarians, but they need to be used carefully and with skill. There is nothing wrong, for example, with a libertarian billionaire who makes contributions to presidential campaigns and senatorial campaigns that result in, say, his gaining more freedom by getting politicians to write tax loopholes for him (as long as he does not use the power to infringe on others) and there is nothing wrong with a libertarian religious leader with a following, say, endorsing an anti-war candidate against a pro-war candidate.

Indeed, there is nothing wrong with a skillful senator endorsing a presidential candidate in order to gain the vice presidential spot, with the plan to use it as a post from which to launch a daily barrage of pro-liberty statements, but it would take a very rare, very courageous, very clever senator to pull it off. The manner in which Rand Paul showed a lack of courage in standing up for freedom in his endorsement, and his lack of skill in executing the endorsement, shows that he is not such a senator. And, I don't see any others close that could currently fill this role. They are all just about 50% plus one vote.

Indeed, in his interviews since endorsing Romney, in every one of them, Rand really talks about nothing but politician math. He talks about how the support he has lost because of endorsing Romney has been nothing but the hardcore libertarians, "most of whom don't vote anyway," says he. He has been adding up in his head on live television the dynamics of the 50% plus one vote for Romney and his role in delivering that vote.

Democracy, despite the reverence and lip service placed on "one man one vote", is really about power blocks, get out the vote machines and the power players who control the blocks, machines and money. It has nothing to do with the individual.

The individual is only served away from government. The only chance an individual has to get his unique quirks met is not from government, where a quirk could never possibly result in a power block to influence government, but in the private property free market society where businessmen are out to serve all--not just the power crazed..

In comparison, unless you are super wealthy, or have a power bloc you can deliver, politics is a waste of time. This is even more the case for the libertarian, since politics is, in the end, mostly the fine art of delivering for the power players by destroying liberty, while talking gibberish about serving the people.

If you buy into the gibberish, you are a sucker.

You are much better off studying about freedom, practicing freedom and writing about freedom, than you are joining and working a political campaign for what ultimately must become a liberty destroying outcome.

36 comments:

This and the letter posted yesterday are great, i really like them... but it smacks to me of Sour Grapes now that Ron's revolution has lost its steam. Where were these missives before that fateful announcement?

This post is bizarre, especially when considering that hundreds of Ron Paul supporters have started to become involved politically and even elected at the precinct and county levels (farm league in politics).

The future for the liberty movement has never been brighter, but all Mr. Wenzel can see is gloom and compromise. I respectfully disagree with Mr. Wenzel and hope he can see this bright future.

Libertarians are best suited and positioned to affect local elections and issues until the cream rises to the top. The bottom-up grass-roots approach is more effective than the top-down because building a strong lasting base starts at the local levels.

Thanks for this. I had actually just written an email to Lew Rockwell as follows (and this seems to answer it):

Lew,

I just finished reading Rothbard's Betrayal of the American Right, and while I understand that Murray was a political junkie, the book made clear that he was in fact a lifelong political activist. There has been a lot of discussion of his political involvement in the wake of the Rand/Ron Paul goings on, and I'm not sure what to make of it all.

You knew him well--did he do this purely for hobby, to affect change, or both? Your writings (along with those of all of the other LRC contributors) have helped me understand how rotten a business politics and government are, but my biggest influence, Rothbard, seems to be pointing me in the direction of political activism (despite being an anarchist).

I guess every individual has to learn his own proper path to make positive changes in the world, but I'd love to hear any insight you have on whether Murray would have coached young people to get involved in the political process?

I was a sucker for a long time. My first vote was for R.R. I can't count how many times my political positions were betrayed by one politician or another, supposedly on my side, but I kept voting and hoping. f*** it. No more. I can do more to advance liberty by introducing people to people like Lew Rockwell, Tom Woods, Gary North and Robert Wenzel. If I help one person change their direction, it's worth more that all of the votes I've ever cast.

People have so much faith in government to save them. My late father had a friend and colleague who, very tragically, lost his two young children to a woman who jumped a curb in a car and killed them both. The woman may have been intoxicated, but she had a suspended license and was operating her employer's car. This briefly made national news from northern California, as the parents lobbied governor Schwarzenegger for tougher laws against this terrible behavior. While my great sympathy could never be deep enough for this family, I know that greater government power is not the answer for irresponsible people. The individual responsible was punished, but new laws enacted will only encroach on the freedom of individuals who are not responsible for the death of the innocent. Only greater freedom and accountability for individuals will bring a better society. Collective punishment through draconian laws will only bring the perfection of a slave-state. While my ability to help the freedom movement is very limited, I pray for the world and our deliverance from evil.

Certainly the Paul campaign has attracted more people to the freedom movement than any of the "educators" (Rockwell, Rothbard, Mises etc). One can argue it is now the role of the educators to deepen and intensify the "newbies" new found interest in liberty, but it smacks of intellectual snobbery towards those who battle in the trenches during elections to denigrate their contribution.

No, I would argue that Ron Paul is an educator. I never looked at him any other way. He isn't inspiring people to read Mises and Rothbard because of his political prowess. He is able to do that by educating people with his message. That is where I see Rand as a failure. He is ineffective at inspiring people to do what his father was so great at. Ron Paul used his political career to spread a message of liberty and to encourage everyone to learn about libertarianism and Austrian economics. Rand Paul is spending his time in DC trying to change it from the inside.

Maybe it's true that politics is a waste of time for libertarians. But if we turn away from it, if we just study and write about freedom and practice it in whatever limited ways we can, are we not conceding the fight to big government statists?

Why should we give up so easily? Why give them the satisfaction? Just because it is a very difficult fight does not mean we shouldn't even try, does it? Ron Paul's influence IS putting more liberty-minded people into public office. Shouldn't we keep going and build on that progress?

I agree with much of this but disagree with the conclusions. As far as I can see, the major criticism of Rand is that he made a tactical error. The nature and timing of his endorsement of Romney was not well thought out. That's probably true, but I don't see people saying he shouldn't have endorsed Romney at all. It's a prudent decision which will helps in the future and, if handled properly, would have cost him nothing. But I don't think we should descend into Tallyrand's observation, "It's worse than a crime. It's a mistake!"

I don't see where Rand's action here rises to a the level of a betrayal of the liberty movement. I'm not eliminating the possiblity of that, I'm just claiming that we cannot conclude that from this gesture.

On the larger issue, I have to insist that now, of all times, is not the time for the liberty movement to quit the field. Under normal circumstances, I agree that we can't hope to make more than marginal improvements. We might be able to legalized medical marijuana, for example. But these are not normal times.

We will not be able to overthrow the power elite, but what happens when the power elite self-destructs? They are headed on that path. The proper comparison is with the break-up of the Soviet Union. The power elite was the Communist Party, but how many Communists are there in the Russia today?

We need to be ready and waiting to pick up the pieces, because if we aren't the statists will move in with even more authoritarian controls. The liberty movement, allied with paleo-conservatives, Tea Parties, and even some liberals could be in position to undertake some very meaningful reforms.

Liberty doesn't always lose. Compare post-war Germany with post-war Britain. Ludwig Erhard became Economics Minister and with the help of his quasi-Austrian advisors, he freed Germany's economy. In Britain, Clement Atlee took over and under the influence of Keynesians and Fabians took Britain down the statist path. Germany shed her totalitarian controls while Britain wallowed in more.

Angela Merkel is not my favorite politician, but she's vastly superior to Hitler, and Putin may be unduly nationalistic, but he is certainly no Stalin (despite some of the over-inflated establishment rhetoric).

If the 20th Century has shown us anything at all, it has shown us that freedom works. Even Communist China and Vietnam and fascist Spain finally had to give in to that principle. We are on the edge of fascism in this country, and it isn't working. Our opponents have enormous resources, but they lack the competence. We can't let them prevail by default.

You have much more faith in the people than I do. It seems to me that the vast majority of people have no moral base, and no understanding of axiomatic principles, much less the willingness to live by those principles. Just look at the number of comments to this post that argue for practicality over principle. And I assume these are mostly liberty minded individuals.

I don't know, Peter. I hope that you're right and I'm wrong. Perhaps the people will see the matrix and the mass delusion will end. But I always remember this story I heard told by the playwright George Bernard Shaw. He was standing in the back of a theater on the opening night of his newest play. When the play ended, the audience erupted in applause with a standing ovation. Shaw knew his play was awful, but his reputation had deluded the masses. There was a man standing next to him, who had no idea he was talking to Shaw, when he turned to him and said, "What are all these people applauding for, this play was awful," to which Shaw replied, "I know, I agree with you, but what are we to do against all this."

If libertarians fail to affect public policy it isn't just because of politicians' lust for power, but also because of the libertarians' defeatist approach.

When liberals ask for "medicare for all" and get a half-baked obamacare instead, they still celebrate - to them, winning a fraction of what they wanted brings them one step closer to winning the rest later on.

When libertarians ask to abolish the TSA and get a bill that seeks to privatize it instead, they ridicule and criticize and moan that it changes nothing and will only lead to bigger concessions in the future.

Notice the difference? Liberals get a fraction of what they want and they celebrate it as a step towards getting everything. Libertarians get a fraction of what they want and they mourn it as a step towards losing everything.

With this difference in approaches, it's not surprising that both prophecies come true.

You don't get it Alex F (IMHO), there is no such thing as public policy in a free society. Public policy is an invention of the state. Public policy requires a use of force, as do all state actions. Therefore, no true libertarian would engage in trying to affect this tool of force.

The natural condition of liberty is an all or nothing principle. You can't have a little bit of a principle any more than you can be a little bit pregnant. We either live as individuals under the condition of liberty or we don't. Such a condition can only occur through a voluntaryist society based on the zero-aggression principle. The state can only exist through use of force, and therefore is immoral.

The acceptance of even the smallest amount of government will always lead to a larger amount of government. The reasons for this are obvious, but if you doubt it at all, then take a simple look at the entirety of history where there has never been an exception. So, arguing over medicare, or the TSA, or any other state invention is like arguing over where to place the deckchairs on the Titanic. No matter how many concessions you get in your favor, the ship is still going down.

"You don't get it Alex F (IMHO), there is no such thing as public policy in a free society"

Here's what I get and you probably missed - on this earth, there is no such thing as a free society.

I've lived on 4 different continents, and nowhere have I seen a society that is (or ever was) completely free. So perhaps instead of ignoring public policy because it doesn't fit into some fantasy model, we should figure out ways to alter it to produce a slightly less-oppressive reality?

When Ron Paul proposes to cut the annual budget by 1trln, I support it wholeheartedly. Do you? What if it were 0.5trln? Or 2trln?

All these options are public policy. The (obvious) point is, some of them are better than others. Let's cheer for the better ones.

"When libertarians ask to abolish the TSA and get a bill that seeks to privatize it instead, they ridicule and criticize and moan that it changes nothing and will only lead to bigger concessions in the future."

Privatize it? They didn't privatize anything. To privatize airport security would be to abolish the TSA and government involvement in that sector. All Rand did was offer a bill to turn the socialist TSA into the fascist TSA. If you want to cheer that on and think it is a good step for libertarians then you are a fool. The only thing libertarians should cheer is when government intervention in our lives is reduced. I'm not getting excited about one government intervention being replaced with another type of government intervention. If that is what you are looking for then the republican party is more your speed.

Such pseudo-privatisations play in the hands of leftists eager to lie/exaggerate and brand these fascist/neocon/neoliberal policies as libertarian. They then point to these as "failures" of the markets rather than the fascism that they are.

Re the general comments concerning national politics, all we "pessimists" are saying is that we, as libertarians, ought to stand back and examine how well national politics are performing in serving our interests. Outside of an educational device the answer is: not well at all. Hence the push for more local politics, more focus on familial and close relationships and on education, as we need to reshape society from the groundwork given how badly the state has drugged and damaged it.

The claim that liberty is "all or nothing", and the desire to concentrate on how pseudo-privatizations will be branded by the left (when instead, you can evaluate the two options on their functional merits and see that ANY private involvement is better than a 100% public entity), are exactly why national politics haven't worked for libertarians.

You're only willing to cheer for those who bat .1000; if they ever miss, you ridicule them and call them traitors. With fans like that, "team liberty" is bound to lose every fight.

Your level of delusion is admirable. Some of these so-called privatisations - like the TSA's - will probably worsen the institution, as if it isn't bad enough already. Why should any libertarian cheer on private business being associated with this mob?

The issue with these picemeal reforms is that they are easily reversible. I don't see anything in Rand Paul to instill confidence that he will be unlike Reagan in the end. He isn't even rhetorically as strong as Reagan. Now some people go on about how he's a master politician or cleverly disguising himself as a Trojan Horse. For the former, well whoop dee doo. For the latter, that is baseless speculation.

I do not want the state to be "bearable". I want it to collapse on its own weight and by its own greed. Its monetary function is already overheating and its debt situation is untenable. The time to be whimpering for crumbs is long gone. The US and other economies are in dire straits. And do you honestly think a libertarian president will make a difference with a legion of socialists beneath him? Before the presidency can be reformed, the people too must be. We don't want to eliminate the state only for it to re-impose itself due to a generation of sheep not having had their blinkers cast off.

How ironic is it when you brand gradual reform as "delusional" and then go on to describe some dream of government collapsing of its own weight as something that "must be".

I'm sorry to invoke reality here, but when the Weimar republic collapsed of its own weight the consequence wasn't exactly Rothbardian utopia; and when the Robbespierre's of the world bring governments down you don't get to see libertarian heaven either.

Just for the record, on a global scale, slavery WAS abolished gradually. The US was the only country in the world where it happened so abruptly and took so many lives. That's where "with us or against us" will lead you every single time. You may be successful in chopping a few heads in the name of liberty, but the closest you'll ever get to it with such an attitude is admiring Somalia from a distance.

The inherent difficulties in challenging statism via political means are quite daunting. Individuals don't really matter. Voting blocs matter. Everything ultimately that happens politically boils down to a cynical calculation of political math. And yes, from a strict libertarian standpoint, Rand could have handled the Romney endorsement better and perhaps he shouldn't have made it all.

However, as depressing as this state-of-affairs may be, I don't see the case for effectively abandoning politics and just going off somewhere to read Mises.

RW estimates that perhaps at most 10% of the population is sympathetic to libertarism based on Ron Paul's support in the primaries. I agree. The vast majority of people don't hate the State. They don't even fear the State. A free society (as libertarians conceptualize it)is actually not desired by most people for all sorts of reasons. As a consequence, the State will go on, politics will go on, all things we rail about will go on, whether libertarians participate or not. We can try to do educational campaigns outside of politics (and people are indeed trying this as we speak), but who honestly thinks this will change things much? Was Murray Rothbard a "political junkie," as RW characterized him elsewhere, merely for the fun of it?

Well stated. That is why the only way for people to really take control is by having the power to call legally bonding referendums. And the first law passed via referendum should be a law requiring any new direct or indirect taxation to require a referendum! That way everyone would know what they are paying for

At the suggestion of the C4L four years ago, I ran for my Republican Central Committee and won a seat. However, now they want me to make phone calls for Romney. Well, that's not going to happen. In fact, I have toyed with the idea of making some phone calls, and saying what I really feel about Romney. Naw, that would be mean.

Anyway, I avoided politics completely before Ron Paul. I registered to vote for the first time so I could vote for him. I thought politics was a complete waste of time.

Well, it IS a waste of time, but I plan to continue as kind of a hobby. During the monthly RCC meetings, I try to "lead by example". I don't say the Pledge of Allegiance, and I during discussions I always jump at the chance to say that we need fewer laws, not more, and always remind them that government should be smaller, not bigger, etc.

I know that I don't have a very big impact on my RCC. But, at least I am there, and they might someday look to me for the "Ron Paul" opinion on something, which I would be eager to give. This could happen, for example, if we have Hyperinflation, or some other civic collapse. They know I have the Austrian Economic views, and that I know my stuff. I would not be surprised if I become the "go to guy" in some kind of crisis. (Whereas, if I were to stay home and not be political at all, they wouldn't have me as this kind of resource.)

We actually do need to plan for this. Someone should write a book, outlining all the various different bad things that could happen in society, and where we should position ourselves as "Remnant Agents", and what we should plan on doing in each situation. We should be ready to guide the remains of collapsed political structures into a free society with no State apparatus. There are several writings on this topic in various places, but I don't know of a book where this is gathered into one place. A "Prepper's Guide to Creating a New Free Society When The Government Collapses". Maybe Tom Woods will take this on as a suggested book topic. Then maybe we would have a chance of doing this more successfully than the USSR.

In the TV series "The Borgias", Cesare Borgia is tasked with dealing with the priest Savonarola who continues to cause trouble for the Borgia pope. Machiavelli reminds Cesare Borgia of what Savonarola really is: a man who deals in miracles. When Cesare Borgia later confronts Savonarola, Savonarola boasts that his authority comes from a higher being. Cesare Borgia replies "then we must put that to the test. A trial by fire. The whole of Florence will be judge and jury". Savonarola has no other option than to accept the challenge. In the background you can hear his followers say "God will protect you father".

You can already guess what happened next. Savonarola tried to walk through the fire. He got burned and was forced to retreat. The people of Florence recognized him for what he was: an ordinary man with no special powers and no special help or protection from God. Where once many were ready to follow him, they now turned their backs to him.

There is a valuable lesson here: destroy the myth and the man will fall!

What is the state? It's nothing more than a criminal organization that has managed to trick the majority of its victims into believing they're being robbed for their own well-being.

One of the most powerful weapons state has is democracy. It's a set of rituals the state performs to make people think they have a say in the whole thing. Read Hoppe's book on democracy for examples of how people's opposition to taxation has been reduced since the introduction of democracy.

Destroy the myth and the state will fall. Do not aim to reform the state. Do not take part in the democratic process. Do not do anything that could be interpreted as legitimizing the democratic process. On the contrary, do everything to destroy people's faith in democracy. Take the incrementalist approach. As a first step, you don't even need to explain anything about economics or anarchocapitalism to people you talk to. A well placed "I don't vote, it doesn't even matter anyway" here and there is a good beginning.

Lead by example. Show people it is possible to lead your life and not call on the state for those services it has monopolized. Show people they do not need the state at all. If you donate food to homeless shelters or food banks; put a "V for Voluntary" sticker on it. Be successful without calling on the power of the state.

"....And he's fighting for Democracy, he's fighting for the Reds He says "It's for the peace of all" He's the one who must decide, who's to live and who's to die And he never sees the writing on the wall

But without him How would Hitler have condemned him at Dachau? Without him Caesar would have stood alone He's the one who gives his body as a weapon of the war And without him all this killing can't go on

He's the Universal Soldier and he really is to blame His orders come from far away no more They come from here and there and you and me And brothers can't you see This is not the way we put the end to war"

Brothers can't you see? You do not destroy the state by becoming a politician. While political activism may not be unethical per se, it is a huge mistake from a tactical point of view. By becoming part of the state, you legitimize it.

Destroy the myth and the state will fall. Destroy the myth and the criminal institution will crumble.

Not all individuals will stop believing in the state at the same time. People, disillusioned, will look for explanations and alternatives. Be ready to give it to them. Be prepared. Spread the information so they'll find it when they are ready. Do not force it on them, but make sure it is available when they start looking themselves. Help spread Austrian works. Fund translations of those works in your local languages. Donate books to libraries and schools. Blog and twitter about how state intervention causes problems. You do not need to be a great writer and you do not need to use your own name. Simply get the information out there. Does your favorite washing product no longer work because the state outlawed one of its ingredients? Mention it on a blog. Did a politician lie about something? Blog about it. Like a blogpost or comment on a blog? Reblog it. Not only will these seeds of liberty be useful to those who stopped believing in the state, they will also be useful in destroying the state's credibility.